Sunday, November 15, 2015

WORDS OF WISDOM - "A"

A ballet of the obvious.

A beautiful theory killed by some ugly little facts.

A bird doesn’t sing because it has an answer; it sings because it has a song. (Maya Angelou)

A bird teaches a fish to swim, without hatred, without bitterness.

A bond of common laughter.

A bore: someone who deprives you of solitude without providing you with companionship.

A bovine society in which happy cows are supposed to produce more milk.

A bowling alley with lipstick.

A brand is a promise. A good brand is a promise kept.

A briefcase with a mouth.

A brown condom full of walnuts. (Schwarzenegger)

A bull who carries his china closet with him.

A burning platform

A "business" that depends on resources that cannot be brought under its control is actually not a business. 

A candle loses nothing by lighting another candle.

A career is about taking risks.

A chain is easier dragged than pushed.

A certain sunny shamelessness.

A chain is no stronger than its weakest link.

A champion hates to lose even more than he loves to win.

A change of place changes one’s luck.

A child does not despise the bubble because it burst; he immediately sets to work to blow another one.

A child should never have to wonder if his parents love him.

A clarity of vision prompted by the purest form of greed.

A collector’s pleasure is always for reasons which other people don’t grasp. (Proust)

A college professor is someone who talks in other people’s sleep.

A committee is a dark alley down which ideas are led to be strangled.

A company is not a museum. It’s not a religion.

A company is stronger if it is bound by love rather than fear.

A company is the combined rhythms of intelligent people rather than any one person's particular expertise or brains.

A company should stand for something, fulfill a purpose, and contribute something useful-hopefully something special, even wonderful-or it shouldn't bother being a company.

A competitive world has two possibilities for you.  You can lose.  Or, if you want to win, you can change.

A complicity of needy souls.

A computer does not substitute for judgment any more than a pencil substitutes for literacy.  But writing without a pencil is no particular advantage.

A confusion of the real with the ideal never goes unpunished.

A constant battle between sharks and suits.

A continual circulation of lies among those who are not much in the way of hearing them contradicted will in time pass for the truth.  (Jefferson)

A corporate culture has to be built on expectations of performance, not rules of
behavior.

A critic is a man who knows the way, but can't drive the car.

A crowd is not company.

A cult of the average.

A culture hollowed out by the imperatives of modern life.

A culture is only as great as its dreams, and its dreams are dreamed by artists.

A culture of worthless admirations – unjust praise without purpose or end.

A customer is anyone who can tell you “no”.

A cynic is a passionate person who doesn’t want to be disappointed again.

A dancing nation, fickle and untrue; have oft undone themselves and others too.

A danger foreseen is half avoided.

A dangerously honest man.

A deception that elevates us is dearer than a host of low truths. (Pushkin)

A delusional pedigree.

A desk is a dangerous place from which to watch your business.

A destructive, zero-sum form of competition has been set in motion that confuses the acquisition of customers with the building of profitability.

A devaluation is like wetting your pants.  It only feels good for a little while.

A diamond is a chunk of coal that made good under pressure.

A different world can’t be built by indifferent people. (Isben)

A diplomat is a man who thinks twice before he says nothing.

A disease that persists until you learn to spell its name.

A divorce is like an amputation; you survive, but there’s less of you.

A dog is the only thing on earth that loves you more than he loves himself.

A doer in a world of doubters.

A doubtful friend is worse than a certain enemy.  Let a man be one or the other,
and then we know how to meet him.

A dream is a wish your heart makes.

A dream you dream alone may be a dream, but a dream two people dream together is a reality.

A driving ambition is of little use if you're on the wrong road.

A drowning man will clutch at a straw.

A drunk keeps no secrets.

A failure is not always a mistake.  It may simply be the best one can do under the circumstances.  The real mistake is to stop trying.

A fatal taste for comfort music.

A few things are important; most are not.

A firm is never static - it is either growing or stagnating.

A fish wouldn’t get in trouble if it kept its mouth shut.

A fog of protection and rumination instead of focusing on right now. (Mindfulness)

A fool and his money are soon parted.

A fool is his own informer.

A fool will lose tomorrow reaching back for yesterday.

A fool throws a stone in a pond and ten sages knock themselves out trying to find it.

A friend has the responsibility to be a witness.

A funeral in the brain.

A general may be sincere, if it serves his purpose, but his purpose is never sincerity.

A goal is a dream with a deadline.

A goal without a plan is just a daydream.

A good action appears inevitable in retrospect.

A good day ain't got no rain.  A bad day is when I lie in bed and think of what might have been.

A good deed never goes unpunished.

A good hat can make the difference between a bimbo and a princess.

A good idea and some hard work can make a difference.

A good leader knows himself and his times.

A good leader never blames his people for his failings.

A good plan, violently executed right now, is a lot better than a perfect plan executed next week.

A good scare is worth more to a man than good advice.

A good speech – has a purpose (to inspire, to explain, to persuade or to exhort) and needs an issue, context, something to overcome. Delivery and structure only matter if they relate to purpose. A good speaker has to be believable – the speech must be consistent with who they are – authentic.

A good toupee looks like a good toupee.

A great bulimic consuming engine.

A great company begins as art and ends as science.

A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep.

A great leader doesn't treat problems as special.  He treats them as normal.

A great product is deep, indulgent, complete and elegant.  (Dice)

A great speech is like a great mini-skirt – as short as possible while covering all of the essentials.

A guest for a while sees a mile.

A guilty conscience needs no accuser.

A happy shrewdness

A hard head makes a soft behind.

A heart warming confection sunk in platitudes.

A heightened sense of enlightenment based on experience.

A high “do” to “say” ratio

A house divided cannot stand.

A household should be of the hill, not on the hill.

A journey brings us face to face with ourselves.

A key has no logic to its shape. Its logic is: it turns the lock.”

A kindness that was also an assertion of power.  It was so reassuring to him to be able to use it.

A lack of talent no longer need be a detriment to advancement.

A large brain does not guarantee large intellect.

A large man has difficulty exercising his wits fully.

A leader does not need faith in himself, but he must have faith in the people he is to lead.

A leader is a dealer of hope.

A leader is the one who gets followed.

A leader must be a dealer in hope.

A lesson taught with humor is retained.

A liar ought to have a good memory.

A lie can be halfway around the world before the truth gets its boots on.

A lie may fool someone else, but it tells you the truth about yourself.

A lie repeated often enough becomes the truth.

A life crowded with incident.

A life lived in fear is a life half-lived.

A life spent in making mistakes is not only more honorable but more useful than a life spent doing nothing.

A life’s ruin of dreams.

A lifetime spent on the border between chutzpah and hubris.

A lighthouse doesn’t tell you which way to go, it’s just a signal to keep you off the rocks.

A lighthouse provides illumination and warning, but not guidance or direction.

A lion at the gate.

A little beauty is preferable to much wealth.

A little inaccuracy sometimes saves tons of explanation.

A little knowledge is a dangerous thing.

A little sincerity is a dangerous thing, and a great deal of it is absolutely fatal.

A little thing in the hand is worth more than a great thing in prospect. (Aesop)
A live plow horse is still better than a dead thoroughbred.

A loaded dealer is a loyal dealer.

A lonely train on a lonely track. 

A longing to wander tears my heart when I hear trees rustling in the wind at evening.

A lot of people try to think up ideas.  I'm not one.  I'd rather accept the irresistible possibilities of what I can't ignore.

A lot of professionals are crackpots.

A loveless world is a dead world, and always there comes an hour when one is weary of prisons, of one’s work, and of devotion to duty, and all one craves for is a loved face, the warmth and wonder of a loving heart.

A magician is an actor impersonating a magician.

A man can’t know what it’s like to be a mother.

A man difficult to like and impossible not to admire.

A man forever voyaging through strange seas of thought, alone.

A man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest.

A man is known by the company he keeps.

A man is never more on trial than in a moment of excessive good fortune.

A man is not finished when he is defeated.  He is defeated when he quits.

A man is not old until regrets take the place of dreams.

A man must descend very low to find the force to rise again.

A man of good enough.

A man who carries a cat by the tail learns something he can learn in no other way.  Mark Twain

A man who is lucky in his enemies.

A man who knows a subject thoroughly, a man so soaked in it that he eats it, sleeps it and dreams it - this man can always teach it with success, no matter how little he knows of technical pedagogy.

A man who runs after two rabbits may not catch any.

A man who strives after an effect not infrequently achieves it.

A man will be imprisoned in a room with a door that's unlocked and opens inwards as long as it does not occur to him to pull rather than push it.

A man with no soul, no inner convictions, he had the integrity of a hyena and the style of a poison toad.

A man who cannot protect his belongings owns nothing.

A man who has no office to go to—I don’t care who he is—is a trial of which you can have no conception

A man who is quiet and full and closed like a well in a village that has been abandoned by all its inhabitants.

A man without paranoia is a man not in full possession of the facts.

A man’s worst enemy can’t wish him what he thinks up for himself.

A message often repeated is a message often remembered.

A minor operation is one performed on someone else.

A mistake in the making.

A mistake is a mistake.  Another mistake is normal.  Only the same mistake twice makes you a fool.

A model (or business plan) doesn’t necessarily get you to the truth.  Eventually math stalls out and something more human – intuition, experience, wisdom – has to take over.

A moment’s insight is sometimes worth a life’s experience. (Oliver Wendell Holmes)

A mother understands what a child does not say.

A mother who is really a mother is never free.

A music publishing company run by deaf people.

A natural is someone who does his homework.

A new idea is delicate.  It can be killed by a sneer or a yawn; it can be stabbed to death by a quip and worried to death by a frown on the right man’s brow.

A new learning experience from an old familiar friend.

A noble goal, shared, is an incredible source of power.

A nod’s as good as a wink to a blind man.

A novelty isn’t necessarily an improvement.

A nuisance may merely be a right thing in the wrong place like a pig in the parlor instead of the barnyard.

A painting is many little lies that add up to a great truth.

A painting should not mean - but be.

A past that was no more important to me personally than money is to a rock.

A penny saved is just a penny.

A perception, once fixed in the public imagination, tends to crowd out the possibility of all others.

Perfectionism is often an excuse for procrastination.

A person going nowhere can be sure of reaching his destination.

A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.

A picket fence in front of a tidal wave.

A piece of instruction comes quietly but indelibly across….

A place lovelier in theory than in practice.

A place where sorrow and salvation exist in a continuum.

A player's effectiveness is directly related to his ability to be right there, doing that thing, in the moment.  All the preparation is no good if it can't be put into action at game time.  He must be able to respond in the here and now.

A poet is someone with a genius for lying and an adoration of the truth.

A poor man’s roast and a rich man’s death are sniffed far off.

A potent brand becomes a form of identity in shorthand.

A prayer for the wild at heart kept in cages.

A prediction in a field where prediction is not possible is no more than a prejudice.

A principle isn’t really a principle until it costs you money.

A problem with no solution may not be a problem – it may be a fact – not to be solved – but to be coped with over time.

A prodigy is a group enterprise.

A product is not a product unless it sells.

A product manager can be a shit funnel or a shit umbrella.

A profession is a personal thing that man acquires.  It cannot be inherited.  It cannot be bequeathed.  Only he who, having made the acquisition, puts to use that know­ledge and skill with all his ability and complete dedication of purpose can be truly called a professional.
(R.E. Onstad)

A professional goes home at night.

A quantification of utility

A quantitative expansion resulting in a qualitative contraction.

A quiet man with a violent mind.

A prophet is not without honor, except in his own country and among his own kin, and in his own house.

A real decision is measured by the fact that you’ve taken a new action. If there’s no action, you haven’t truly decided. (Tony Robbins)

A relaxed man is not necessarily a better man.

A romantic comedy has to have characters grow to some kind of realization that the world is bigger than their little concerns.

A sad soul can kill you quicker, far quicker, than a germ.

A sage on the stage becoming a guide on the side

A screenplay is essentially a selling tool.  It isn't always the movie that gets made, but it's always what gets the movie made.

A secret always has a timetable.

A sense of failure is one of the most insistent feelings held by successful people.

A sense of timing is the mark of genius.

A service station glaring with wasted light.

A sham necklace of bitter brevities or false, hollow eulogy will not do for criticism.

A shared goal is an incredible source of power.

A ship in dry dock is safe and secure, but that’s not why ships were built.

A ship ought not to be held by one anchor, nor life by a single hope.

A sincere effort is all you can ask.

A slab of meat that could sing.

A sinkhole of depraved venality.

A small bank account focuses the mind.

A software product takes ten times as much effort as a program written for private use.

A special kind of obscenity

A stare without warmth, without illusion.

A story we tell ourselves about what we could have been.

A stream cannot rise above its source.

A strong sense of duty imprisons you.

A struggle of hope against history.

A stumble may prevent a fall.

A stupid man’s report of what a clever man says can never be accurate, because he unconsciously translates what he hears into something he can understand.

A stupid person’s idea of what a smart person sounds like.

A superior aviator uses his superior judgment to avoid situations that would require his superior skill.

A surrealist cage: those inside it are free.

A system that expects failure doesn’t try very hard to produce anything else. (Gerald Seib)

A terrible resentment builds when you’ve borrowed money and can’t pay it back.

A thought to turn the mind to pure Jell-O.

A thousand pens are ready to suggest what you should do.
A three year old is not half of a six year old.

A transparently false self-cut off from history, from purpose, from even an iota of authenticity.

A tree is best measured when it's laid down.

A true friend always stabs you in the front.

A true master of politics is able to calculate, down to the smallest fraction, the advantages to which he may put his very faults.  (Napoleon Bonaparte)

A truly great business must have an enduring moat. (Buffett)

A turtle on a fencepost.

A valiant heart always trumps sheer talent.

A verbal agreement isn't worth the paper it's written on.

A vision without resources is a hallucination.

A vision without the ability to execute is probably a hallucination.

A waist is a terrible thing to mind.

A waste of skin.

A wealth of advice is far less instructive than a strong example.

A well-balanced Irishman - a man with chips on both shoulders.

A wide screen just makes a bad film twice as bad.

A willingness to be held accountable.

A winning performance always beats a winning attitude.  Give me action, not motivation.

A wise man will make more opportunities than he finds.

A woman’s success depends on the shoes she wears.

A work of art is good if it has sprung from necessity.

A world of woozy song.

A world shot through with contingency.

A writer is someone for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.

A’s hire A’s. B’s hire C’s.

Abdicate:  give up hope of ever having a flat stomach.

Ability has nothing to do with opportunity.

Ability may get you to the top, but it takes character to keep you there.

Absolute submission can be a form of freedom.

Absolutely nothing great in the world has been accomplished without passion.

Abstraction is a type of decadence.

Abuse of power comes as no surprise.

Acceptable latency

Accidents happen to people who are inadequately prepared.

Accommodation to parental needs often (but not always) leads to the “as-if personality”.  This person develops in such a way that he reveals only what is expected of him.  He cannot develop and differentiate his true self, because he is unable to live with it.

Accomplishment entails giving up the pleasures of the present moment in favor of anticipated triumphs. (This is an impulse that must be learned.)

Accomplishments bring you admiration, not love.

Accumulation of power does not provide security.

Act first to desire your own good opinion of yourself.

Act in haste, repent in leisure

Act like a crazy dog, wear sashes and other fine clothes, carry a rattle and dance along the roads singing crazy dog songs after everyone else has gone to bed.

Acting is the greatest leg-opener in the world.

Action causes more trouble than thought.

Action conquers fear.

Action expresses priorities.

Action is the antidote to despair.

Activity doesn't necessarily yield achievement.

Actors are alcoholics waiting to happen.

Actors are idols.  Heroes are those with something at stake.

Add little to little and there will be a big pile.

Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later. (Brooks Law)

Adding years to life is science’s job; adding life to those additional years is education’s task.

Addition by subtraction.

Admitting you’re an asshole is the first step.

Adoption is a strong component of an innovation’s success.

Adventure is something you seek for pleasure or profit – for the illusion of being more alive than ordinarily but experience is what really happens to you in the long run; the truth that finally overtakes you.

Advertising is necessarily a trick, whereas art is not a trick; it’s an illusion that tells the truth.

Advertising is like making love to a 500 pound gorilla -- you don't stop when you
want to.

Advertising is the cost of being boring.

Advertising is the plastic surgery of business.

Advertising is the rattling of a stick inside a swill bucket.

Advertising was the dot.com’s storefront.

Advice is a form of nostalgia.

Aesthetics is for the artist as ornithology is for the birds.

After a first true love, you never love like that again in your life.

After learning the tricks of the trade, many of us think we know the trade.

After the ship has sunk, everyone knows how she might have been saved.

After the third call, assume the rumor is true.

After things go from bad to worse, the cycle repeats itself.

After you finish being smart in this business, you also have to be lucky.

Age and treachery will overcome youth and skill.  (Triumph Over)

Age brings wisdom but from youth comes truth.

Age cannot wither her.

Age is a very high price to pay for maturity.

Agoraphobia - too much openness.

Ain’t but two kinda people in the wurl.  The ones that gives and the ones that takes, and know’n what ya gonna be is the difference between bein’ a player or suckuh.

All bad poetry is sincere.

All believing is essentially betting – since we cannot know what’s right or wrong – we make bets based on experience.

All blues singers are great liars.

All business success is based on two things: building relationships and patience.

All cats are grey in the dark.

All change is not growth, as all movement is not forward.  (Glasgow)

All charming people have something to conceal, usually their mainstream dependence on the appreciation of others.

All cruel people describe themselves as paragons of frankness.

All damaged people are dangerous because they have no pity.  They know that others can survive, as they did.

All dat glitters ain’t gold.

All evolution, cultural as well as biological, is a process of continuous adaptation to unforeseen events, to contingent circumstances which could not have been forecast.

All experience is great providing you live through it. If it kills you, you’ve gone too far.

All farewells should be sudden.

All forms of commerce are adversarial. (B. Diller)

All glory is fleeting.

All great discoveries are founded in small thefts.

All great ideas ultimately degenerate into work.

All great wars are lost in the middle.

All happy families are alike and every unhappy family is unhappy according to its own ways.

All I have to do is finish the game.  I’ll finish it, maybe not standing up, but I’ll finish it.

All I want is an unfair advantage.

All labor has dignity.

All life is a game of power.

All living things harbor an impulse to economize, to accomplish more with less.

All men mean well.

All music is folk music. I never heard a horse sing a song. (Louis Armstrong)

All my friendships are becoming hardships.

All my possessions for a moment of time.

All new ideas pass through three stages.  First, they are ridiculed.  Second, they are violently opposed.  Third, they are accepted as being self-evident.

All of the moves; none of the courage-afraid to throw a punch that might land.

All of these you are
And each is partly you
And none of them is false
And none is wholly true.  (Stephen Vincent Benet)

All of this is like tears in the rain.

All of us, whether we are in this business or not, have little voices that tell us we’re not good enough, and we don’t deserve it.

All our “isms” are “wasms.”

All our knowledge has its origins in our perceptions.

All our knowledge is about the past and all our decisions are about the future.

All progress depends on the unreasonable man.

All quarrels are not petty.

All relationships are transactional. Even love. Love may be the most transactional relationship of all.

All sink, no plumbing

All sorrows can be borne.

All strategies are vulnerable to reality, expected and unexpected.

All that glitters is not gold.

All the blessings we enjoy are the fruits of labor, toil, self-denial and study.

All the characteristics of a bad stutterer without the stutter itself.

All the drive and ambition in the world is of little use if you’re on the wrong road.

All the hope and idealism in the world will not suffice without a thought-out plan of action.

All the knowledge I possess anyone else can acquire, but my heart is all my own.

All the passions produce prodigies.  A gambler is capable of watching and fasting, almost like a saint.

All the slow rabbits have been caught.

All the thoughts of a turtle are turtle.

All the wood behind one arrowhead.  (Focus)

All the world in your pants.

All things being equal, fat people use more soap.

All things come to those who wait.

All things continue until they stop.

All things flourish where you turn your eyes.   (eye of master)
All things with a vengeance.

All too often, people believe that creativity leads to innovation.  It doesn’t.

All truth passes through three stages. First it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. And third, it is accepted as being self-evident.
All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered; the point is to discover them. (Galileo)

All wise negotiations mean settling for what you can get right now rather than what you want one day.

All women become like their mothers.  That is their tragedy.  No man does.  That’s his.

All work is creative work if done by a thinking mind, and no work is creative if done by someone who repeats in uncritical stupor a routine he has learned from others.

All writers, I think, are to one extent or another damaged.  Writing is our way of repairing ourselves.  I was filling a hole in myself.

All writing is therapy.  To some extent all writers seek their craft to heal a wound in themselves, to make themselves whole.

All you really have that matters are feelings.

All your knowledge is about the past and all your decisions are about the future. (Wilson GE)

Allow children to be happy in their own way, for what better way will they ever find?

Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much.

Almost everything is easier to get into than out of.

Almost only counts in horseshoes and love.

Alter your expectations.

Although the wages of sin may be death, it’s nice work if you can get it.

Always assume it will take twice as long and be twice as hard as your worst possible dreams.

Always be in a state of becoming.

Always be in beta.

Always be the only person who can sign your check.

Always disappointed, never surprised.

Always fight your battles on familiar ground.

Always give wrong directions to a contrarian.

Always go to other people's funerals, otherwise they won't come to yours.

Always have your bags packed.

Always hearing things for the first time.

Always partner up; never partner down.

Always suspect a man who affects great softness of manner, an unruffled evenness of temper, and an enunciation studied, slow and deliberate.  These things are all unnatural, and bespeak a degree of mental discipline into which he that has no purpose of craft or design to answer cannot submit to drill himself.  The most successful knaves are usually of this description.  They affect the innocence of the dove, which they have not, in order to hide the cunning of the serpent, which they have.

Always remember to pillage before you burn.

Always striving, never arriving.

Always take a job that’s too big for you.

Always the years together, always the hours.

Always tough; sometimes fair.

Always try to see your opponent's cards.

Ambient Intelligence – An unseen fog of digital knowingness.

Ambition - ambition to do - ambition to be.

Ambition is exhausting.  It makes you friends with people for the wrong reasons, just like drugs.

Ambition is just as dangerous as complacency.

Ambition is like the sea wave which the more you drink, the more you thirst. (Tennyson)

Ambition is one of the more ungovernable passions of the human heart.  The love of power is insatiable and uncontrollable.

America is like a melting pot: the people at the bottom get burned and the scum floats to the top.

Americans aren’t going to trust a party to defend America if it can’t defend itself.

Among the first signs of serious problems is an abandonment of perspective, a feeling that one is unique in his troubles.  Everyone has the same problems.  The only differences are degree and the richness of the mix.

Amusing, not doubt, yet hardly moving further below the surface than a paper boat in a bath tub and, like the boat, ever in imminent danger of becoming a shapeless, sodden mess.

An entrepreneur is someone who dares to dream the dreams and is foolish enough to try to make the dreams come true.

An unseen fog of digital knowingness.

Anger usually trumps suspicion.

Angergy

An actor can’t always act – sometimes he has to work.

An actress is something more than a woman and an actor is something less than a man.

An administration, like a machine, does not create.  It carries on.

An apology not accompanied by change is an insult.

An artist is his own fault.

An artist’s work develops out of need, compassion and commitment.

An economist is an expert who will know tomorrow why the things he predicted yesterday did not happen today.

An economy of attention.

An elephant’s tampon.

An elite is inevitable.

An enemy whose mind is distressed is an uncommonly vulnerable enemy.

An entire society ruled by what people want, and what they do to get it.

An era ends when its dreams are exhausted.

An eternity of sweat, tears - and toil.

An evasion of self-awareness.

An expert is someone more than 50 miles from home, who has no responsibility for implementing the advice he gives, and shows slides.

An explanation of cause is not a justification by reason.

An idea isn't responsible for the people who believe it.

An idea that isn’t dangerous is hardly worth calling an idea at all.

An ignorant man will always be the first to be heard.

An imposer:  one about whom one worries whether his response to one's next remark will be a smile or a snarl.

An industry not based on a developmental model (we will get better and better), but on radical obsolescence—what you’re doing now will be meaningless tomorrow.

An institution is simply the lengthened shadow of a single individual.

An institution that stands for nothing will fall for anything.

An intellectual in show business is like the smartest bear in the zoo.

An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest.

An invisible presence—like a fume or a scent.

An iron girder in a house of cards.

An oak without wind doesn’t grow strong.

An ounce of loyalty is worth a pound of cleverness.

An ounce of momentum is worth a pound of acceleration.

An oxygen-free environment which doesn’t support life.

An uncommon amount of common sense.

And don’t look back, something might be gaining on you.

And how the same inexorable price must still be paid for the same great purchase.  (Whitman)

And in the night of death, hope sees a star, and listening to love hears the rustle of a wing.

And it was to this city… that I always knew I must return, for it was the mistress of one’s wildest hopes.

And, like a dog at a dinner party, he won't go away.

And so, he slowly, systematically, and hopelessly sat down and shut up.

And the days dwindle down to a precious few – September… November… and these few precious days I’ll spend with you.

And the rest, as they say, was mystery.

And the rest, the children, the country kitchen, the domestic bliss, we leave to others, who will have different regrets.
And then the day came, when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom. (AnaĂŻs Nin)
And they, since they were not the ones dead, turned to their affairs.

And think not you can direct the course of love, for love, if it finds you worthy directs your course.

Anytime anyone has an idea, five other people elsewhere have the same idea simultaneously.

And the days dwindle down to a precious few – September…November…and these few precious days I’ll spend with you.

And those who are successful,
Be always on your guard;
Success walks hand in hand with failure,
Along Hollywood Boulevard.

And when you have reached the mountain top, then you shall begin to climb.

And when your walls come tumbling down, I will always be around.

Anger is not cathartic, and you won’t break a losing streak by exacting revenge on your perceived enemies.

Angergy

Another impossibility is to expect another’s heart to accommodate your own desires and needs.

Another victory like this, and we are lost.

Anticipation is essential. You can’t wait for opportunities to become obvious.

Antisocial behavior increases in proportion to the excuses that intellectuals make for it.

Any artist has only one revolution in him.

Any clear way, though it lead to death, is preferable to the tangle of uncertainty.

Any day above ground is a good day.

Any day you're not moving the ball forward, it's moving backwards.

Any event, once it has occurred, can be made to appear inevitable by any competent journalist or historian.

Any excuse will serve a tyrant.

Any group that would gather to hear a politician speak wouldn’t know a good speech if they heard one.

Any man who's extremely successful and takes no pleasure in it is a man after my own heart.

Any person hired by a bureaucracy to respond to public complaints has no power to remedy them.

Any problem you can solve with a check isn’t a problem, it’s an expense.

Any rational person would give up.

Any repeated actions contain deep psychological truth.

Any Sale is Better than A Slow and Painful Expiration

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

Any surplus is immoral.

Any worthwhile goal is difficult to accomplish.

Anybody who gets away with something will come back to get away with a little bit more.

Anybody who has survived his childhood has enough information about life to last him the rest of his days.

Anyone can deal with madness - it's reality that's impossible.

Anyone can hold the helm when the sea is calm.

Anyone have any questions for my answers? (Henry Kissinger)

Anyone in an environment that is not preparing him or her for a tougher future should move out fast.

Anyone who angers you conquers you.

Anyone who closes his eyes to the past is blind to the present.

Anyone who stays somewhere for someone else ends up alone.

Anyone who tries to make a distinction between education and entertainment doesn't know the first thing about either.” (McLuhan)

Anything can happen now that we've slid over the bridge...anything at all.

Anything can happen to anybody at anytime as long as you find something you’re devoted to.

Anything that’s not a clear winner is a loser - no living dead.

Anything will fit a naked man.

Anything worth doing at all is worth doing to excess.

Anywhere from soon to shortly after the end of life as we know it.

Apostle of the obvious

Aquarium story—rocks, stones, gravel, sand, water - can’t put the big things in last.

Are there wounds in the past so strong that they'll pull you back no matter what you do?

Are you happy you joined the circus?

Are you still important?  Not to myself.

Are you tired of living another man's dream?

Are you with us or in our way?

Ars est celare artem / It is (true) art to conceal art.

Ars longa, vita brevis / Art is long, life is short.

Arsonists masquerading as fireman.

Art, after all, only embellishes truth.  It is not truth itself.

Art begets certainties that biography can’t confirm.

Art begins in honesty.

Art dealers are like surfboard riders. You can’t make a wave. If there are no waves, you’re dead. But the best dealers know which of the oncoming waves are the right ones.

Art does not lie down on the bed that is made for it.  It runs away as soon as one says its name.  It loves to be incognito.  Its best moments are when it forgets what it is called.

Art has no other object than to set aside the symbols of practical utility, the generalities that are conventionally and socially accepted, everything in fact which masks reality from us, in order to set us face to face with reality itself.

Art is a boy's name.

Art is a form of prayer.

Art is a language, not just what it is.

Art is a lie that enables us to see the truth.

Art is a way of getting in touch with one’s own insanity.

Art is about making something out of nothing and selling it.

Art is like grand music, an eternal act of generosity.

Art is not a mirror to hold up to society, but a hammer with which to shape it.

Art is not a profession which can be mastered by study.

Art is not a thing – it is a way.

Art is not an end in itself.  It's a means of addressing humanity.

Art is not optional.

Art is not truth.  Art is a lie that helps you understand the truth.

Art is the only way to run away without leaving home.

Art is the signature of civilizations.

Art, like morality, consists of drawing the line somewhere.

Art makes singularly unglamorous demands: integrity, sacrifice and discipline.

Art serves us best precisely at that point where it can shift our sense of what is possible, when we now know more than we knew before, when we feel we have-by some manner of leap- encountered the truth.  That, by the logic of art, is always worth the pain.

Art suffers at the hands of reality.

Art tells you things you don’t know you need to know until you know them.

Artificial intelligence is no match for natural stupidity.

As a general rule, I think it’s a good plan to always have more dreams than memories

As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.

As a practical matter, he had no past, only a future.

As focused as a bullet in flight.

As always, victory finds a hundred fathers, but defeat is an orphan.

As long as I am unforgiven
As far as I am pushed away
As much as life seems less than living
I still try.

As long as you act as if you're coming from behind, you have a shot at staying ahead.

As much chance as butter against the sun.

As soon as you start thinking about the beginning, it’s the end.

As the camel falls to its knees, more knives are drawn.

As the frequency of expression grows, the force of each expression diminishes

As the number of news outlets expands, it is said, attention spans shrink; only the fast and the pithy will survive.

As the twig is bent, so is the tree inclined.

As they say in poker, if you're in the game 30 minutes and don't know who the patsy is, you're the patsy.

As tho' to breathe were life.  (Tennyson)

As useful as cups of air to a dead man.

As we've gotten more open-minded, we've gotten more closed-hearted.

As you make your bed, so you must lie upon it.

Ask for the order. When the customer says “yes”, stop talking.

Ask not about things which, if made plain to you, may cause you trouble.

Ask questions until you understand the answers.

Ask whether you’re working off your “in” basket or whether the organization is working off your “out” basket.  If it’s the former, you’re reacting rather than leading the organization toward its goal.

Ask your doctor for a reason to take it.

Asked which of his works is his masterpiece, he answered, “my next one.”

Asking a writer about critics is like asking a lamppost how it feels about dogs.

Asking me to play golf would be like asking me to drive over to the town dump and separate the garbage.
Asking my husband to help me write a song would be like asking him to salt my food to his taste.

Asses and elbows.

Assholes are assholes basically forever.

Assume nothin'.

Assume nothing and follow up on everything.

At a time when courage counted most, I lived among the bravest of men.

At first, dreams seem impossible; then improbable; and then inevitable.

At just the right moment, he was always there.

At least her tattoos were all spelled right.

At present we are combating a trend.  But this trend will die out, superseded by others, and then the way we are arguing against it will no longer be understood; people will not see why all this needed saying.

At some point, you need a big building in a bad neighborhood.

At some point in his life, he didn’t want to feel, he just wanted to be successful.

At the core of true happiness is the wisdom not to ask for too much.

At the end of the day, politics is about the ability to inflict pain.

At the top, life seeks expression through particular individuals.

At times inactivity is preferable to mindless functioning.

Athletes must fail and must fail as early as possible.  Because in the beginning, they get by on their talent alone.  But with failure comes thought, and greatness needs the combination of talent and mind.

Anfall är bästa försvar .. Attack is the best form of defense. 

Attention is the hard currency of cyberspace.

Attention must be paid.

Attention must be paid for.

Attitude can change adversities into assets.

Attitude is more important than facts.

Aurora comes to terms with an unrequited love that cannot penetrate the barriers of self-absorption.

Authenticity reads on camera.

Average is over.

Avoid backing anyone into a corner. No one is more dangerous than someone who cannot retreat.

Avoid biting when a simple growl will do.

Avoid interruptive thinking.

Avoid the belief that dealing is preferable to working.

Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure.  Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.

Avoiding the potholes is cheaper and smarter than buying (getting a good deal) on new tires.

Awaken us from our habitual indifference

Awards are merely badges of mediocrity.

Awe is a great motivator.


Axe enters the woods:  upon seeing it, the trees said, look, the handle is one of us.

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